forked tongues and plumbean feet
by Jade Sabre
Summary: Five times Shepard danced better than she bluffed.
1. 2168

**Title:** forked tongues and plumbean feet  
 **Author:** Jade Sabre

 **Notes:** Ages ago Perahn gave me the prompt on Tumblr, and I decided to turn the five-sentence meme into a five times fic, and now it is finally seeing the light of day. The Shepard here is the same one featured in "the fire of service and battle," which contains some background headcanons that finds their way into this fic. Not required reading, but maybe helpful. Also, I wrote the entire thing to "Water Under the Bridge" off Adele's _25_ , as it has a good beat and felt appropriately dance-y.

A thousand million thanks to my beta LoquaciousQuark for going over this with a fine-toothed comb and helping me prod its ballooning shape into something resembling a structured piece of fiction. In the process it has become something near and dear to me; I hope you enjoy.3

* * *

 _if you're gonna let me down  
let me down gently  
don't pretend  
that you don't want me  
our love ain't water under the bridge  
_

* * *

 _one_.  
She's never going to get the hang of this.

"No," Catie says for the thousandth time, "you have to turn your head _before_ you turn your body. Like this."

She demonstrates the spin again, but the connection craps out and Emma just sees a blur of motion that jaggedly resolves into her sister's face as she comes closer to the camera. "Right," she says, fingering the end of her ponytail, damp from where she's been chewing on it. "But—"

"You just have to pick something to focus on before you turn," Catie says. "It just takes practice."

She's _been_ practicing, spinning round and round her tiny bedroom, but she's never going to be as graceful as her twin, with her circles upon circles of perfect pirouettes, and she knows it. Maybe if she was on a real dance team at a proper high school she'd have some potential, but as it stands she's just arms that won't hold still in a nice round way and legs that can't turn fast enough to keep time with the beat. The extra gravity probably doesn't help either, but she can only lay so much blame on external forces. She's just no good at it, and that's that.

She's chewing on her ponytail again without realizing it, and Catie wrinkles her nose. "You're going to have awful split ends if you keep doing that," she says, and then she brightens and starts babbling about what some girl at school told her was the best thing for split ends, and did they have it on Earth? because if not, she could send her some, but if so, maybe Grandmother would let her take—

"It's winter," Emma says, mostly just to shut her up. "The tram doesn't come up here when there's so much snow."

Catie shudders. "So you can't get out, even if you want to?"

"Sure, if I _had_ to," Emma says.

"Don't you want to?" Catie says, and now _she's_ nervously running her fingers over the carefully braided twist in her hair, perfectly pulling away from her temple. "Uncle Albert's got three extra bedrooms, or we could share."

"Sure," Emma says again, but the thought of leaving the quiet safe solitude of Grandma Shep's little house for the loud boisterous crowd at Uncle Albert's, exchanging snow for alien pastures and the security of knowing where she fits for the mire of social strata that Catie describes—

"Have you heard from Mom?" she asks, and pretends not to see the hurt in her twin's eyes.

"I've _told_ you, she never messages me without messaging you," Catie says, but there's no real heat to her exasperation and her disappointment is enough to drown them both.

"Oh," Emma says, and then, "I have to go," which is a bald-faced lie and they both know it. She lives in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and Catie will never, never understand why, and it hurts her, too.

"Oh," Catie echoes, graceful even in rejection. "Okay. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Okay," Emma says. And then— "Miss you."

"Yeah," Catie says, her mouth twisting wryly as her image reaches for the off key. "Miss you too."

The screen goes dark and for a moment Emma sits alone in the silence; and it taunts her, filling her head with the noise of _never ever_ and _not good enough_ , her utter insignificance in the face of an empty galaxy full of stars.

 _Get over yourself_ , Catie says, her voice as loud and clear as if she was sitting right next to her.

And she's right, of course, and Emma scowls at her even though she's not here to see it. But her heart lifts and it chases the darkness away, and it'll be enough to last until they see each other again.


	2. 2176

_two._  
"You dance like a monkey," Catie says, standing in front of the mirror on the door as she pulls hairpins from her not-quite-regulation bun.

Face down on her bunk, her head pounding like the beat of the bass in the club, Emma says, "Oh?"

"I've been thinking about it," Catie says, and the sound of tearing paper tells Emma she's also removing the letter with her service assignment from where a drunken fellow firstie had taped it to her back. A real, paper _letter_ —but the Academy on Arcturus was known for little shows of Earthly extravagance. Darzi had thought he'd been being funny, letting everyone know she'd gotten Intelligence, "'cause she's gonna be a spy, get it?"

Not a spy. An analyst. Safe. Safe, like Emma's assignment, tucked into an inside pocket of her dress blues, to be bragged about some other time. It hadn't been easy to get, after all. There had been interviews. Physical fitness tests, the usual and then the grueling nigh-impossible ones. A full psychological panel, just in case, proving at least that she wasn't crazier than any of the others. There'd only been a handful from their class to make it this year. It's an _honor_ , and damn it, she is _proud_ of herself.

Catie is still talking. "...maybe like an elephant's trunk? And I also thought hanar, but you've only got the two arms, so, monkey."

"Thanks," Emma says into her starched sheets, so tightly stretched across the bed wrinkles can't even entertain the thought of forming. "Not all of us studied under an asari."

"You've got rhythm," Catie says, rightly ignoring her deflection. "I know you do. So why don't you put it to use?"

"We have this argument after every dance," Emma says, finally flopping onto her back. "Why does it bother you?"

"It doesn't!" Catie says. "I just don't understand why you don't try to be better at it."

"Because I don't _need_ to be," Emma says.

"Well," Catie says, with a strange note in her voice, and then she stops talking entirely. For a few moments Emma is glad of the silence, and then she spends the next few deciding that part of her headache is that she hasn't taken her hair down and she really ought to muster the energy to get to work on it, and just when the silence is getting worrisome there's the creak of Catie climbing the ladder to the top bunk. And then she's there, rolling Emma back onto her stomach, and then her fingers are at work on her hairpins, digging into her scalp in a no-nonsense massage for which Emma is profoundly grateful.

There's a cost, of course. "You might need to get better at it," Catie says. "Is everything all right with you and Chiz?"

Her eyes are already closed. She closes them harder. "We're fine."

"Because he told me he thought you were going Celestial Cartography," Catie says. "I thought he was joking and said something about you not being able to handle all the wavy lines, but he didn't laugh. Didn't you tell him?"

"Yes," she says.

"He seemed upset."

"He's not."

 _She didn't understand the disappointment on his face, didn't want to deal with it, tried to surround herself with everyone else's excitement, but he caught her arm before they went into the bar to celebrate, pulled her into an empty comm booth while Darzi catcalled and Vasile hollered. It was close quarters, but it was private, and she appreciated that. She appreciated so many things about him; she didn't—_

 _"Since when are you going Marine?" he asked._

 _"Since forever," she said, her arm still in his grip. "Congrats on Medical, by the way. I know your parents are going to be so proud."_

 _He didn't let go. "You know I'm going to med school."_

 _"Yeah," she said. "And I'm not."_

 _"I know that, I didn't mean—" His eyes were dark and focused on her and she forced herself to meet them, to meet the fact that his concern scared her. "I just thought—I thought you'd be doing something safe."_

 _"Safe?"_

 _"Look, your initial obligation will be up once I'm done with school, I thought—"_

 _The look in his eyes wasn't just surprise, wasn't just disappointment. He was worried, and he looked a little crushed, and if she had to spend another minute in the booth with him she was going to suffocate._

 _"Can we talk about this later?" she said, pulling a little against his grip._

 _He let go immediately. She appreciated that about him; maybe she wished he wouldn't give in so quickly. "Yeah, I mean, yeah. It's time to celebrate," he said, but his excitement was hollow. "I just—"_

 _"Later," she said, opening the door to the booth._

 _He caught her hand. "Promise?"_

 _"Yes," she said, her other hand still on the door, not looking at him, feeling the familiar roughness of his skin against hers, and then he let go again, this time of his own accord, and she wondered—_

 _Later._

"Emma Jane..."

She'd pull away, but her sister's fingers are as soothing as they are insistent. "It's fine," she says.

Catie sighs and stops, shifting her weight as she gathers up hairpins and makes her way back down the ladder. "If you say so," she says. "Let me know if that changes?"

"Yeah," Emma says, but it won't. It's fine. It's not like her heart is breaking, which is perhaps the problem, but—it doesn't _bother_ her.

But he didn't even offer congratulations. Not once. And Mom is going to be furious, and Catie's supportive but she doesn't understand, and her grandmother would have frowned mightily and her father—

Dad would have understood, would have been pleased, but he's out there somewhere in the dark and thinking about the grin on his face hurts more than she wants to admit. It's been ten years; she should be _used_ to it by now.

And in any case, none of it matters. She's _proud_ of herself, even if she's the only one; she's proud enough to make up for the rest of them. She's going to be a Marine, and the best damn one the Alliance has ever seen, and maybe then—maybe once she's proved it, though how, she can't imagine—maybe they'll believe in her, too.


	3. 2183

_three_.  
"You're shitting me," Ashley Williams shouts over the thumping bass. The fluctuating lights on the dance floor muddle her expression, but her tone makes her disbelief perfectly clear.

"Am not," Shepard shouts back, and to make her point she tries to clap with the beat and fails, miserably, mostly because it's hard to clap with an empty shot glass in her hand.

"That's it?" Ashley hoots—and when had she become Ashley? She may be the NCOIC, but she's still enlisted, _damn_ it, and while she's on the subject she's still not sure what she's even _doing_ , hitting up bars on the Citadel with a subordinate. "That's your big move?"

"Look," Shepard says, and God help her she might actually be a little drunk, "I never said I was _good_ at this."

"Obviously," Ashley says, "but I didn't think you'd be bad at it."

"Yeah, well," she says, but she doesn't really have an answer, and she's still not sure how "help me see about something over shore leave" has turned into "come on, Commander, just one more shot." She doesn't _do_ this, though the soberer part of her observes that perhaps it's just because she hasn't had friends to do it with. Which is ridiculous; she has _friends_ , they're just scattered across the galaxy and she hasn't seen them in...years. Not that she doesn't consider her fellow N7s friends, though at this point it's been months since she's seen them too. And even when she was serving with them...well, she'd seen how they liked to blow off steam, and somebody had to make sure they all got home safely. And she never minded being the one to do it; taking care of everyone else has always been enough, but—

well, this is _fun_ , and she has to admit she can't remember the last time she just had fun.

Even if it is with someone down the chain of command with a penchant for blackmail.

"Commander?" says a familiar voice behind her, and it's a good thing her glass is empty because otherwise she'd be spitting her drink across the floor. It's also a good thing Ashley doesn't appear to have a camera on her omni-tool because she's pretty sure her face is priceless but why in the _hell_ —

"Lieutenant!" Ashley says cheerfully, with a look that implies she is not only totally unsurprised to see K—Alenko ( _shit_ ) but is also enjoying Shepard's reaction. "Another shot, Commander?"

Without waiting for a response she plucks the shot glass from Shepard's hand and disappears into the crowd of people between them and the bar. Shepard grasps after her but comes up empty and, resigned, turns to face the waiting officer.

Shit. The lights are bouncing and he looks _good_ , and she must be a little drunk because she'd never admit that sober, or even tipsy, but the play of shadows across his face does nothing to obscure the fact that he's the first man in—

well, _ever_ , really—

and now is not a good time to be having such thoughts because he looks _concerned_ , probably because his CO is getting drunk with an NCO and—"Commander?" he says again, looking around as if the middle of the dance floor is not exactly where he expected to find her. "Is...everything all right?"

She takes a deep breath. When was the last time she had this much to drink? Focus. "Lieutenant," she says, managing to keep the word somewhat professional, anyway. "Is there a...problem?"

He doesn't respond right away, confusion written across his (don't think handsome don't think hand _shit_ ) face, and she winces. This is awkward. This is very, very awkward, and precisely why she _doesn't_ fraternize, even platonically. He looks entirely uncomfortable on the dance floor, which is strangely comforting, because what would she do with a man who wasn't? She needs to sober up, and she _definitely_ needs to stop moving her shoulders to the beat. She wishes she had a drink in her hand. Or better yet, a gun. And while she's at it, she'd rather be covered in Thorian creeper muck—

well, no, Feros had been a bitch and a half, and that's why they're here, isn't it? And wasn't he—

"Aren't you on leave?" she asks, trying to fill the silence with something other than the pulsating beat.

"Yeah," he says, some of the tension easing as he finds an answer. "A bunch of the Marines wanted to catch a movie, so—"

"You didn't leave in the middle of it, did you?" she asks, horrified, and when Ashley comes back with that drink she is going to toss it back and then knock her to the deck. Floor.

"Not exactly," he says. He has to lean in to be heard, and she holds herself very still, locking her hands in a commander's pose behind her back. "I got caught up trading omnitool specs with a quarian at Expat's stall, and then a lost elcor asked me for directions, and the next rapid transit that would take an elcor wasn't for half an hour and so I waited with her—"

"Her?" she asks, intrigued despite herself.

"I think so?" he says. "I got a detailed explanation of her clan's history, but I didn't catch her name. Or the movie. I was about to head back to the _Normandy_ to take a nap when I got Ashley's message."

He's perfect, and this close she can smell whatever he's wearing and it smells good and Ashley sent him a message. "Message?"

"She said it was an emergency," he says, though his expression makes it clear that he no longer believes this to be the case.

"I bet she did," Shepard mutters.

"So," he says, still resigned, a little embarrassed, she thinks, and at least it means she's not alone. "I take it you don't know...?"

"I can guess," she says, and she shouldn't have said that because now she's more than a little embarrassed and she could _kill_ Ashley but at the same time there's something heartwarmingly familiar—

It's something Catie would do, and if Catie could see her now, making a tipsy fool of herself over a platoon commander—

If Catie was speaking to her, anyway.

 _Shut up and dance, Emma Jane_.

"My—I've been told," she says, as he's still waiting for her to elaborate (as if he hasn't guessed, and maybe he hasn't, because if nothing else she is _bad_ at this sort of thing and that might be a blessing because if he hasn't guessed—if he doesn't know—it means she's not so transparently obvious as she fears and maybe she can salvage her dignity after all), "that I dance like a monkey."

He blinks, almost rocking on his heels, and then his lips curve in a slow burn of a half-smile that steals her breath and her balance in one go, and she can't stumble into him and so instead she bumps into an asari who sizes her up and dismisses her in one glance. It's kind of nice, actually, to be ignored, and his grin is rueful and she can't help but grin back at him. And something in his face— _catches_ , like a breath or a heartbeat, and maybe they're both obvious, and maybe—

"Well," he says, recovering, "if she thought I could help, I'm afraid she was sorely mistaken." So he can't dance either. She was right, and it pleases her, and then his next words stop her cold. "So," he says, hesitant and awkward and perfect, perfect, perfect, "do you want to...go for a walk?"

A walk? She can walk. She can even manage a straight line because that's what she's _trained_ to do, dammit, walk and talk and shoot straight even if concussed and bleeding out and keeping her guts in place with her free hand and sheer willpower. She has a scar from that one that nobody's seen, except maybe the doctors. Nailed a batarian between the eyes anyway. It had been a good shot.

She would like to walk. Like very much to walk, and just walk, and talk, shoot the breeze about anything and everything, learn him inside and out and then maybe share scars, the ones that only go skin-deep and maybe the ones that matter, too, fathers who never come home and sisters who can't forgive. His shoulders are broad and she could lean on them; his hands are steady and she could hold them, offer her shoulders in turn. She wants to. She already has; she just hasn't _said_ it, because—

she's Commander Shepard, first human SPECTRE, and a goddamn professional.

 _Language, Emma Jane. Just because you're a Marine doesn't mean you have to_ talk _like one_.

 _Though maybe if it meant you'd loosened up a bit, that'd be something else entirely._

She might be drunk on a dance floor—not so much anymore, reality a better tonic than any bucket of cold water to the face—but she hasn't spent the past decade carefully constructing her life within the confines of her career for nothing. Or maybe she has; but she doesn't know how to _de_ construct it, either. And there's an entire galaxy counting on her ( _it's just a walk_ ) and she's been doing this long enough to know that _she_ doesn't matter, so long as the job gets done.

Later. After all, there's always _later_.

"No," she says, and to her surprise her voice is steady, "thanks." She doesn't need an excuse; she's his _commanding officer_ , and mixed with the understanding on his face is a clear resignation that calls to her, soul to soul, and she'll shoulder his disappointment alongside her own and maybe one day they can unpack it together.

She makes the excuse anyway. "Someone's got to make sure Williams makes it back unscathed."

"Right," he says, tepid amusement matching hers. "Do you need backup?"

She manages to quash any inappropriate thoughts before they begin to blossom, being, as she is, _no fun_. "Nah," she says, and she is surprised at the _ache_ in her chest. "Go take your nap, Lieutenant."

"If you're sure," he says, and she obviously isn't but he's so _good_ , letting her live the lie, and she is absurdly, eternally grateful to him. Which doesn't help the situation, and even as she hesitates he takes the choice from her hands, sketching a salute. "Best of luck to you."

"Thanks," she says, and he half-smiles at her again and turns away to spare her the indignity of being seen so completely undone. She stands there and watches him walk away until a particularly enthusiastic human-asari couple attempts to enfold her in their sandwich and their hot, sweaty bodies shove her right off the dance floor.

Probably for the best.

She needs to find Ashley. She needs that drink.


	4. 2185

_four._

Someone is always watching, and all she wants is a drink.

It takes a long time—a _long_ time, long enough to lose any semblance of this being a spur-of-the-moment thing, long enough for this to be a wholly premeditated act, long enough for any sense of unease about who she is or what this makes her to disappear beneath her conviction that she is going to _do this_ , no matter how stupid this might be. But it takes a long time to make this happen, not because she doesn't want to, but because someone is _always_ watching and she refuses to believe that she can't find a place away from that.

Funny, because she'd grown up either being watched (security cams are everywhere on a space station, after all) or being surrounded by people who'd deliberately chosen to be as far away from the cameras as they could get. Her entire adult life has certainly been supervised, even those black ops undercover never-written-down missions she has to claim don't exist, because there's always somebody, a teammate or a civilian or even just the VI in her hardsuit monitoring her heart rate. And of course all the above-ground places are covered with cameras and advertisements with face-recognition software more detailed than her own brain can manage, and the DNA security scans, and—

well, it's not something she can just _escape_ , and honestly it's mostly harmless, even when it's not.

But these days she's a prisoner in her mind, on her own ship, and even her damn _bed_ is watched by a vigilant AI spy and when she looks over her shoulder, down the deep dark tunnel of frantic suffocation and helpless heartbeats too loud in her ears, she thinks at least in the black she was _alone_.

Someone's always watching the airlock, too.

And the usual voices in her head can't really stand her either, but she'd rather have that than the _silence_ , Catie hating her all over again to the point where she doesn't even recognize her sister (though hey, that goes both ways apparently), doesn't know what she'd say or do if she could see her now. And so she falls back on her last words, _I had a life and they made me live yours instead and now you've managed to ruin that too_ , echoing in the empty chambers where her voice used to be. And there's no way to reply, to say that it's _not her fault_ , that she didn't want to die and she's not sure she wants to be back. Not if it means being back like this, with the twin weights of her sister's hatred and her own guilt squeezing the air from her lungs, not when that's not even the worst part of it and yet she has to bear all of it like the crushing load of a dead Reaper on her back.

It's being trapped in a hardsuit and waiting for someone to crack it open and fracture a rib or two in the process, break her sternum just to get the blood pumping again—

and on Horizon he does, he _does_ , but he won't come with her and she knows he won't and she doesn't know why she tortures herself with asking—

and she needs to _grieve_ , dammit, she remembers that from all the mental health classes and briefings and counseling sessions, even if she refuses to let go, even if she can't just _stay dead_.

(This is not how the mental health classes and briefings and counseling sessions suggest she ought to grieve. This is, in fact, the complete opposite, but she really doesn't care. She wants to hide, and she desperately needs a drink.)

The Citadel's too centralized, too close to Alliance space; Illium's even worse with the watching, since everything has a price; and she's not sure she could stand Aria's careless smirk from Afterlife's lounge. But in the end, Omega's her best bet, short of someone opening a bar on the other side of the Omega 4 relay—and hey, maybe that's a retirement plan worth considering, especially if they can't find their way back—and if Aria decides to be pissed that she picked a hole-in-the-wall instead of Afterlife, well, she'll probably end up laughing too hard instead.

Shepard really, _really_ doesn't care.

It's a krogan joint, which suits her just fine, and she brings Grunt so that if anyone decides to question her presence she can pull the krantt card. This is technically disrespectful, according to her cultural sensitivity briefings, but it'll give Grunt the chance to knock the heads of his fellow krogans and that always makes him happy. She's ditched her hardsuit and bought the first crappy clubbing outfit she found off the ship, and if Miranda was telling the truth about not putting a chip in her head she just might be invisible to Cerberus for the first time in months. Unless, of course, EDI has a direct line to her cybernetics, which is possible, but she's pretty sure she can see lead shielding through the holes in the wall and maybe that'll be enough.

Jack is here, too. She didn't exactly invite her but the younger woman has a nose for trouble and free drinks—and even if this all turns up on her tab, she can blame Jack and disclaim ever being there and if anyone decides to disagree she'll punch them.

She's maybe been spending too much time with Grunt.

The cybernetics make getting drunk difficult, her hyped-up metabolism laughing away the first five shots, fist-bumping the next three, but by about the tenth she's feeling it, strung out on the end of a kite. She could've just done ryncol from the start, but she wants this to linger.

"Hey," says the krogan next to her at the bar, "human."

"Yeah?" she says, holding her eleventh shot and trying to decide if she'll still be conscious after it. She's floating in a pool of apathy and it feels pretty damn good.

"You're Commander Shepard?"

"Just Shepard," she says, and then she laughs because hell, she'd be up for Major by now, _shit_ , who wants to be a major anyway, all desk work, should've gone enlisted if she wanted to hit things, doesn't matter now, does it?

"You killed—"

"You wanna dance?" she asks, setting her drink down, swinging to face him. Her joints are loose and now there's adrenaline mixing with the alcohol and she feels on _fire_ , fantastic, alive—

"Uh," Jack says from the other side of her, in a tone that indicates that she really doesn't care, "maybe not the best idea."

"For him or for me? 'Cause it's sweet of you, but I can take him."

The krogan slams his drink down; Grunt stomps the ground and Shepard waves him off, backing away from the bar as the bartender grumbles. Stance wide, stable ( _ha_ she can feel herself swaying), fingers flexing, thumb on the outside, and the krogan charges and she slips out of the way, stumbles against a table, pushes off it and jumps on his back.

A bad idea, as he rears back and slams her into another table-speaking of broken ribs—but she's too drunk to care about pain and she scrabbles her fingers into the ridges of his plates, hauling herself up as he tries to shake her off until she's sitting on his neck and can wrap her legs around it. How many windpipes do krogan even have? He grunts as she squeezes and suddenly he swings his head and she digs her fingers under the edge of his plates and holds on as tight as she can, tightening her legs because maybe she can shut down at least _one_ of his—

And then he's grabbing her ankles and before she can really process what to do he's pulled her over his head, _ow_ , and the room is a blur as he swings her around and throws her into the wall. Ten shots start making their way up from her stomach as stars swirl over her head and maybe she's dying again—the room is still spinning, wavy and wrong, but her eyes pick out what appears to be a very angry krogan putting his head down and if she's not dying again she's about to be and this isn't really how she'd wanted to go and that's about all she can manage to think, which is a relief, and she starts to laugh.

And then she keeps laughing and she can't figure out why, she's supposed to be _dead_ , and then her skin thrums with someone else's biotics and her biotics flare in response and hit a _wall_ , an implacable stasis field, and she blinks again and there's Jack, hands casually raised in front of her, Shepard in one field, the krogan in the other.

"Well," Jack drawls, and through the stasis field Shepard can't make out her face, "this has been fun and all, but I think it's time for us to go. Grunt? Close out the commander's tab."

Grunt say something in reply, and then Jack is moving, hands still out, and when she reaches Shepard she _kicks_ her to get her moving and she really is going to throw up because she's inside a stasis field rolling across the floor and she keeps laughing and she'll choke on her own vomit at this rate and her head _aches_ and laughing hurts like maybe more than one rib is fractured in there. The field traps her laughter around her ears and she doesn't know how far out the door they get before Jack drops the field and the outside world rushes in upon her and it _smells_.

She's on her hands and knees and puking up her guts—and she's never been this drunk before, so, mission accomplished, and she starts to laugh again and her throat _burns_ and more comes up, and she can feel Jack's biotic field buzzing at her back and when she finally stops puking long enough to flop over she finds herself leaning against a wall and looking up at the deepest scowl she's ever seen on Jack's face.

She grins.

"That," Jack says, "and this is coming from me, and the irony is making me a bit sick, but _that_ ," she jabs a finger in the presumable direction they came from, "was fucking stupid."

"Yeah?" Shepard says, and at the edges of her happy drunk stupor she feels shame and responsibility and guilt, as well as a physical pain she doesn't really want to contemplate, and she clings to her laughter instead. "No shit."

"I don't know what kind of fucking moron you have to be to pick a fight with a krogan on his own turf," Jack says. "You never struck me as the suicidal type."

"I'm not," Shepard says, breathless, her throat raw, trying to filter out the words she doesn't want to hear. "Just drunk."

"Yeah," Jack says, still looking down at her, arms crossed. "Didn't strike me as that type, either."

"I'm not," she says again, and it occurs to her that she's sitting next to her own vomit in what appears to be a trash heap and she pushes up with her hands—and her arms don't appear broken, that's good—and makes it to her knees before gravity pulls her sideways. She pushes back, biotics flaring without her doing much more than making a fist, and she's heading for the low-hanging ceiling before Jack yanks her back to the ground and she lands, _hard_ , and the fact that Jack might actually be mad at her about this is—hilarious. Or at least it must be, because she's laughing again, and this time it really is starting to hurt but she ducks the responsibility because it's funny.

"So, what, you're finally cracking?" Jack asks. "Commander Shepard, off the rails?"

"Just tonight," she says, though she's pretty sure it's technically noon, _Normandy_ time, but Omega is always dark. "Just—" and something catches on something somewhere in her chest and she wheezes instead of finishing her sentence. Not that she knew what she was going to say, and now that she's not pounding back drinks her enhanced metabolism is catching up to the alcohol and everything _hurts_ , skin heart blood head lungs _ow_.

She's never been one of those Marines who finds exhilaration in injury, one of those N7s who feels like it makes her sharper, more alive. She can fight through the pain, ignore the distraction, shoot a batarian square between the eyes while cinching her own tourniquet, but it's only ever made her feel _bad_. She doesn't want to feel bad.

"Time to find another bar," she announces from the ground.

"No," Jack says, "time to find some medi-gel and patch you up before you go back to your bunk to sleep it off. You think," she says, as a protest blubbers across Shepard's lips, "the cheerleader won't blame me for this? Hell no, I'm not taking the fall for you."

"Then why'd you come?" Shepard says, vaguely aware that she is sulking, but at least she can ignore the voices in her head when the ones in her bones are so insistent.

Jack doesn't answer, and whether they go to a bar or—no, not Chakwas, she couldn't handle the disapp— _no_ , everything hurts, focus on that—she needs to be standing up, and so she goes about it. She makes it to one knee, wobbles, gets a foot under her and then another but then the first foot forgets what it's supposed to be doing ( _ha_ ) and she flails her arms to keep her balance—

and then Jack unfolds, grabbing her arm and yanking it across her shoulders, and then she starts dragging her down the corridor. Shepard's feet take an alarmingly long time to catch up with the motion, and she's not sure her arm hasn't been dislocated, but she's so surprised she can't handle feeling anything else.

"You," Jack says, though maybe she's not talking to her, "fucking suck, you know that? Of course you're not perfect, nobody is. And you're an idiot because you _care_ , but at least you've been consistent about it. Everybody wants something but you never want something until _now_? And what do you want, to get yourself killed? And if you don't, then what the fuck are you even doing here?"

"Good question," Shepard comments. She hangs her head so she can keep an eye on her feet, which are more or less walking alongside Jack, though the walking is jerky and making her nauseous again and Jack's voice is loud and her head hurts.

"Shut up," Jack orders, and Shepard obeys. When was the last time she had a direct order to obey? Or _dis_ obey, and it's been two and a half years according to everyone else but it still doesn't feel like it and she still forgets, no matter how hard she tries to remind herself, left right left right come on feet, she thinks, come _on_.

Jack is still talking. "...fucking _hero_ , but you're wound too tight, you know that? I mean, Jesus, I could've told you that picking a drunk fight with a krogan won't solve your problems. You're too fucking extreme. Can't even be selfish like a normal person, no, you have to go and try to die—"

"Would be very selfish," she observes, still watching her feet. "Have to save the galaxy."

"Too. Fucking. Extreme." Jack stops and Shepard's feet keep going and next thing she knows Jack unslings her arm and pushes her into the wall, pinning her with her forearm. Her tattoos swim across Shepard's vision, her teeth bright and white in the shadows. "What the fuck is this all about?"

"You care?"

"Fuck you." She pushes off Shepard and takes a step back, still glaring at her. She's not entirely sure she can stay upright— _definitely_ a fractured rib, though it doesn't feel like anything's been punctured, and sobriety's tendrils are worming their way into her brain and she doesn't— _want_ —

"No thanks," she says, but the drunken joviality has deserted her and the words echo hollowly off the walls.

"Stop trying to be a little shit," Jack says. "You can't pull it off. Answer the damn question."

"Why?" Shepard says. "You don't care. Nobody cares."

There's something fierce in Jack's expression, not _caring_ , because she's pretty sure the other woman doesn't know what that means, but her head hurts and so she closes her eyes and braces herself against the wall so she won't fall and counts her aches.

"You're fucking _lonely_?" Jack says.

"Just because I don't," she squeezes her eyes shut, feels the tension in her jaw, wants to laugh but can't manage it without despairing and _shit_ , she doesn't want to be sober, "want to kill other people on sight like you—"

"That's just because you're too weak," Jack says. "You care and look where it's gotten you. At least I don't go around trying to die."

"You wouldn't know how to." She's kind of proud of Jack as she says it. The other woman's a survivor _despite_ all of Cerberus's best efforts, not because of it. Kind of proud, and suddenly a little jealous.

"Neither do you."

"I might," Shepard says, "if you hadn't saved my life."

 _Ha_.

"Trust me," Jack says, "you haven't even touched the surface of suicidal."

"Trust me," Shepard says, opening her eyes, and then she stops because really that's all she wants. It's what makes her a good commander. The kind that people enjoy serving under. _What are you afraid of?_

She misses him. She _misses_ him, and it's a hurt deeper than the ache in her bones and the suffocation of always-lonely-never-alone, worse than facing the black because it's death by inches and seeing him had been hell and back again but at least she'd been— _alive_.

Jack is still scowling at her, and there must be something on her face because she says abruptly, "This doesn't have anything to do with that asshole on Horizon, does it?"

"He's not an asshole," she says, which is not what she means to say, so she follows up with that: "No."

"For fuck's sake," Jack says, crossing her arms again, head tilted, and Shepard tilts hers to match. "Do I have to give you the 'he's just a guy' speech? Shit, what are you, _twelve_?"

Shepard keeps tilting her head and the world tilts with it—everything _hurts_ , and it'd be easier just to fall over. But Jack doesn't let her, catching her as she slides halfway down the wall and shoving her back upright, shaking her shoulders. Her head flops and that hurts, too, and makes everything muddled. "Not twelve," she says, because words are starting to feel expensive. "Or an asshole."

"See? This is what I mean," Jack says, giving her another shake like she'd like to let go but knows Shepard won't stay upright if she does. "Look at you. You care, and where does it get you? Drunk and alone and half-dead because you almost took a krogan to the face. All it does is fucking _hurt_. Even the great Commander Shepard can't escape it. So why do people _bother_?"

She's suddenly tired, staring at Jack for a moment like she's looking in a mirror, like the other woman's right, like all this pain could've been avoided—like she's had a choice in any of it, but—she chose to love him, didn't she? Could've escaped that one if she really _tried_ , maybe, but she never did and she'll never know for sure and it'd be easy to blame her past self for the oversight but—she'd choose it again. Choose _him_ again. Chooses him now, chooses all of them now, and will tomorrow when she's waking up with a hangover to rival her most legendary escapades, and will the next day when she's still alone, and again and again and—

it _hurts_ —

but something occurs to her, and she tilts her head again and looks at Jack. Jack, who is still standing there, holding her up against the wall, looking like she's won, and in the face of her annoyed confidence—no, _disappointment_ —she says, "Not alone."

Jack's eyes narrow. "What?"

"Drunk," Shepard says, starting to nod and immediately regretting it, "yes. Half-dead, maybe. Not alone."

"So?"

"Not. Alone." She reaches up and tries to poke her in the chest, ends up hitting her shoulder. "You're here."

Everything's a little too blurry to catch Jack's expression before she shuts down completely, before she pushes Shepard against the wall and lets go and turns away, but she can feel the flare of her biotics and she grins. And then it registers that Jack is walking away and she stumbles after her, reaching out and landing a heavy hand on Jack's shoulder.

Jack shrugs it off, angry, and Shepard keeps grinning because she knows this anger and it's—

"You stayed."

"Fuck off."

"You ca—"

"Fuck _off_ ," Jack says. "What did I say about trying to be a little shit?"

"Sucks, doesn't it?" This time she slings her arm over Jack's shoulders, mostly because she's falling again.

"Keep this up and I won't take you to the _Normandy_."

"Yes," she says, and before she can add the _ma'am_ Jack actually snarls, and she starts to laugh.

"Shut up," Jack says, which only makes her laugh harder and it _hurts_ , laughing, it hurts and leaves her breathless and bruised and bleeding and _alive_ , heart pounding and nerves thrumming and hope drumming like a cadence before dawn, when everything's about to be made new.


	5. 2186

_five_.  
She's always worked best with a team at her back.

She'd never have been able to hold the power station on Elysium if the militia hadn't been picking off pirates from the doorway, no matter what the brass said, and the Collector base...well, her team had saved her life in more ways than one. Alone, she has nothing to concentrate on but the enemy and the mission, and inevitably she forgets herself; with a team, watching their six even as they're watching hers, she has something to live for, circles upon circles as they trade positions and responsibilities and targets and cheap shots, all in the same breath.

That's her specialty, breathing for others when she can't breathe for herself. But in the spaces between she finds others supporting her in turn, Garrus and Liara and Joker and EDI and even the ones she hasn't met, everyone who sends encouraging messages or brief notes of thanks. And her mother and Catie are tucked away working on the Crucible and haranguing her inbox at every turn; trust the Shepards to need a galactic fight against organic extermination to bring them together, but family's family and she's glad to have them. For what feels like the first time in her life—her adult life, almost certainly—she's surrounded by care, capable of anything, and it's enough.

(He's unconscious in a Citadel hospital. He's conscious but confined to a bed, _safe_ , and it's enough.)

(He's a SPECTRE, and heading for parts unknown, and it—is.)

And beyond her personal sphere planets swing around suns and the galaxy keeps spinning circles around all of them while the Reapers cut a swath across the floor and she keeps just a step out of reach, and another, and another, dragging everyone with her—

but Mordin lets go of her hand and steps _into_ the fire and she watches him burn. One more loss; one less at her six. She tightens her grip on the others and steps away again only to find herself in a fire of Cerberus's making and Thane throws himself into the middle of it and she can't—

it's their sacrifice to make; for them, it is _enough_ , but she's supposed to—

she can't—

and they're chasing a Council with a particular SPECTRE at their head and—

A shuttle platform on the Presidium, bright and airy and exposed, the subtle tang of ozone and the whiff of grass and a thousand other soothing scents wafting through the air, an oasis from the faraway smoke and screams and sirens, the gunfire echoing in the elevator shaft as it clangs shut behind them. And Garrus and James at her four and her eight, and Udina in her sights at her twelve and the chance to end this _now_ , with a single shot, and her finger on the trigger and the breath before she pulls and—

Kaidan, in her sights, at her twelve.

Her breath stops and her blood rushes through her ears and only years, no, a _lifetime_ of preparation keeps her hands steady and her gun trained on him. She is the picture of professionalism and he's on the wrong side of her gun and she feels _exposed_ at her back, like there's a huge gap in her coverage and somehow she's missed it until this moment—somehow she's managed to pretend it's not there. And his gun is on her, but where she's a weapon he's a _man_ , and the man he is has never been a killer. And she sees his muzzle waver as their eyes meet and in the midst of the shouting and pounding chaos her heart fills to bursting even as her aim stays true, as if she thinks he won't step aside, as if she'd shoot him if he doesn't.

She explains, her finger still on the trigger and her eyes locked with his in a mirror of desperate hope and a moment of _trust me_ , and then he says, as if preparing himself for disappointment, as if disappointed in himself, "I hope I don't regret this."

In another moment he turns and just like that they're on the same side again, and he lets her take the shot.

She loses him after that, as he completes his mission for the Council and she joins Bailey in organizing cleanup efforts; as Bailey relays Kolyat's message and she reaches the hospital to find Thane confined to a bed, and safe across the ocean now; as she wanders the Wards and wonders how long they can last, living like this. She's so lost she doesn't realize she's found her way back to the _Normandy_ until she looks up to find him standing in front of the airlock, arms crossed, looking out across the sky lanes.

She takes a moment to just _look_ at him, in part because she still likes looking at him after all this time (though time is such a muddled thing for her, even now, but if she considers it another way to measure distance in space it all starts to make a kind of sense), in part because her full-to-bursting heart resurfaces and leaves her speechless. He's going grey, and the lines at the corners of his eyes are becoming permanent which means he must still smile from time to time, and the thought pleases her. She is pleased. She is _glad_ to see him even as she realizes that this is the first time they've stood together in something like friendship without any regs between them—well. _Technically_ , they're both Alliance. _Technically_ , he now outranks _her_ , and if him standing here means what she thinks it means then probably they're still in some sort of chain of command together. And the galaxy is _definitely_ burning down around their ears, and—

He wants to come back aboard.

She could sing, but she doesn't, because as Catie has pointed out on multiple occasions (usually when singing the Academy fight song after a loss to the turians) that no one really enjoys it when she does. She—isn't really sure what she wants to do; she can't remember a time when she's been so absolutely, unequivocally happy. Strange, that it would take the galaxy burning down around their ears for her to feel this way, but then again maybe it has nothing to do with the galaxy and everything to do, quite simply, with having the man she loves within arm's reach again.

"Shepard," he says, after she's managed to articulate a welcome, and as they shake on it what he says next is the only thing she'll remember through the fog of happiness that threatens to turn into a big stupid grin plastered across her face. "I need you to know I'll never doubt you again."

He's holding her hand and her eyes and her heart and the look on his face tells her he knows it, tells her he won't let go, and her grip on his hand tightens in an answering promise. And an answering big stupid grin tugs at the corner of his mouth, and he says, "I've got your back."

"Good to know," she says, and now they really are both dangerously close to stupid grins and the cameras are watching and the press will have a field day if she makes a fool out of herself here and she almost doesn't care. But there are better places to be a fool, _later_ , and so she simply says, "Welcome aboard, Major."

He salutes her and falls in at her six, circles upon circles, and there's a _click_ in the underpinnings of the universe and it is—

enough.


	6. 2187

_epilogue._  
The condo's nice.

It's not Anderson's place on the Citadel, but since that's buried somewhere in Earth's ocean, this'll do. It has a view of the ocean, thanks to the Reapers bombing the previous shoreline into nonexistence, and she let herself splurge on the penthouse because hey, she's saved the galaxy, she deserves a little quiet.

Not that it's quiet now, though Glyph is manning the DJ table and refuses any and all attempts to coax him to turn the music up to decibels deemed harmful for organics. Tali's half-buried in an access panel somewhere trying a workaround, and Shepard vaguely hopes she's not so drunk as to cause any lasting damage to the electrical system. The _Normandy_ has the largest supply of dextro-friendly alcohol this side of the relays, and the quarian has enforced strict rationing throughout the reconstruction period in order to have plenty of options to indulge herself when the time came.

And tomorrow, the relay opens back up; the fleets stuck in the Serpent Nebula have finished their repairs, and the first known post-war relay travelers will take Tali and Garrus and Wrex and Grunt with them. Liara thinks the best place to rebuild her network is still Earth, despite the devastation, but one day she will go, too, and Javik will probably go with her. And who knows how long it will take to get the next relays working, and the next, how long it will take them to reach the places they long to see, let alone how long before they decide to leave them again.

There's an irony in that, that she who never had anywhere to call _home_ is the first one to get there, though she's not sure this penthouse is quite the place. But Kaidan's got one arm around her while his other hand lifts a beer to cheer Jacob on as the latter attempts to arm-wrestle Grunt and it's the best kind of home she knows.

Everyone's made their way here, even Zaeed Massani, who's currently showing Jessie off to a vaguely intrigued and definitely drunk Wrex. Jack and Miranda are at the bar and apparently not killing each other, which is nice, and Garrus is collecting bets on the arm-wrestling with a smug look on his face that she thinks means her lover— _ha_ —is about to get fleeced. And sure, half of them are still in braces or on crutches, even all these months later, and she herself can't do much more than stand up and lean, but they're _here_ , and it's more than she would have ever dared to hope for if she wasn't such a damn fool as to hope in the first place.

Grunt finally stops toying with his opponent and pins Jacob's arm so hard the other man barely manages not to yelp. "Damn," Kaidan says.

"I _told_ you," Shepard says, taking advantage of his disappointment and stealing his beer. After a swig, she adds, "They used to do this all the time on the _Normandy_."

"Maybe it's just a Cerberus thing," he says. Raising his voice, he says, "Vega! We need you to—"

"No, man, I _got_ this," says Jacob, who has apparently taken it upon himself to have all the alcohol that Brynn can't. She's somewhere in the apartment, nursing the baby and last she saw talking to Kasumi about her tactical cloak. "One more try."

"You _wish_ ," Grunt says, baring his teeth and flexing his fingers just before Jacob grabs his hand again.

"Hey Kaidan!" Garrus says. "Five-to-one odds, this time."

"Sucker bet," Shepard comments. "Do you even have anything to bet _with_?"

Before Kaidan can reply, the music changes, something slinky and spicy and around the corner James appears leading Catie through a complicated set of steps that cuts right across the arm-wrestling, knocking Jacob's chair out from under him.

"He can tango," Kaidan says, as Garrus tries to help Jacob up and Grunt decides to tackle both of them in a hug. "Of course he can."

"Of course," Shepard agrees, and they _do_ make a pretty pair, which is a weird thing to think when one of them looks just like her—well, just like she used to look before she took a nosedive from the exosphere, though the skin grafts are getting better every day—but she's never really gotten to see her sister put her ballroom skills to work and of course she makes it look effortless, though her carefree grin hides an intense concentration as James puts her through her paces.

"Ooh," Samantha says, neatly stepping over the krogan-turian-human groaning on the floor to join them. "They're so _fast_."

"Oh my," Kasumi says, leaning on Shepard's other side. "Shep, your sister's so— _graceful_."

"What are you saying?" Shepard asks, with only the mildest of accusations in her voice. She'd like more beer, but eventually Miranda will notice and start lecturing her about pain killers and retarded healing ability and all those things she'd rather not think about.

"I'm saying she'd be an excellent cat burglar, and you would not."

"Hey," she protests, but before she can get another word out James _dips_ Catie and the spectators start catcalling. She cups a hand out her mouth and hollers, "Vega, that's my sister!"

James doesn't reply, though he grins through his frown of concentration. "Thanks," Catie says, as she comes back up, and then he throws out his arm and she follows the motion with spins, turning in quick succession until her own arm is extended and she nails a pose. "But I got this."

" _Yeah_ you do," James says as she spins back into him.

"I think he's actually hitting on her," Shepard says to nobody in particular.

"I think it's actually working," Samantha answers.

Kaidan turns his laugh into a cough as Shepard turns her mild distress on him. "You were out for a while," he says. "People get to talking."

"You could have warned me."

"Yeah, well," he says, as the dancing pair cuts back across the room. "I didn't realize they'd been practicing."

To distract herself from the mildly disturbing implications of this, she looks around, doing a mental tally of all her guests. Granted, most of them practically live here, but she'd sent out invitations for this and everything. Well, Joker had done most of the inviting, but the point is everyone's here and—she frowns and says, "Has anyone seen Chakwas?"

"I think Wrex dared her to try a finger of ryncol," Kaidan says.

"Wrex!"

"Relax," the krogan roars from the couch behind her. "I set her down gently."

" _Where_?"

Wrex waves vaguely, and she knows that the doctor has the tolerance of a tank and probably can handle something as trivial as krogan alcohol. Probably. Still, as the soberest person at the party—and boy, if that's not a blast from the past—she probably ought to check on her. She looks around for her cane; she could _swear_ she'd left it against the wall, but when she turns she sees Joker waving it over his head as he demonstrates something to Steve, who seems to be arguing back just as vehemently. Great.

She turns to ask Samantha to tell them to knock it off when suddenly the music changes again and the bass _booms_ hard enough to rattle the empty picture frames on the walls. Glyph squeals some indecipherable binary code in the sudden silence that follows, into which floats Tali's triumphant voice: "Got it!"

"Miss Tali'Zorah, I really must—"

Whatever the rest of Glyph's protest, it is lost to the sudden flood of bass-thumping, techno-track-booming music. Shepard winces, though not so much as the faint cries of pain coming from Jacob as he climbs to his knees. Grunt's back on his feet and grinning as Tali emerges triumphant from wherever she's been, hands raised in victory. Glyph manages to dial the volume back a touch but freezes in midair when Tali turns her visor on him, and he doesn't make a peep as she makes her way to the center of the living room and announces, " _This_ is dancing music."

Catie laughs and releases James in order to clap; James only looks put out for a moment before it changes to alarm as Kasumi suddenly appears, shimmying next to him. Tali starts dancing with nobody, but Liara soon joins her; Jack makes her way over from the bar, waving a drink in the air and tossing it back before throwing the glass on the floor and getting down.

"Good thing that's unbreakable, huh," Shepard says to no one in particular, but Kaidan hears her and laughs, tightening his grip around her waist. She leans into him harder but can't quite stop the shifting of her shoulders with the beat, and when she glances up he's watching her with laughter in his eyes.

"You want to dance?" he asks.

"Oh," Shepard says, but she's already testing her legs. A little achy, and her left foot probably can't handle her whole weight on its own, but he's got her by the forearms and she can hold on to him and shuffle, and it's worth it for the grin on his face.

"Hey, monkey!" Catie says, sliding over to shuffle next to her despite James's attempts to ensnare her again. "At least now you have an excuse!"

"Shut up," Shepard says.

"Nah, she's right," Jack says, cozying up to a slightly uncomfortable Garrus with a wicked grin on her face. "You dance like _shit_."

"I think you dance better as a cripple than you did _before_ the crash," Joker says as he breezes by on his way to the bar.

"That's mutiny," she shouts after him, but it's impossible to hear anything beyond the circle of the dance floor, and anyway, she's pretty sure he just shoots her the bird.

"It's all right," Tali says, swaying back and forth while her arm jams to the beat. "Kaidan's just as bad."

"They kind of have a point," Kaidan says, as James dances by, pauses to stare at them in abject horror, and then snags Catie to shield him from Kasumi's advances.

"Nonsense," Shepard says, looking up at him and bobbing her head to the beat. "You and I," she says, pouring every ounce of truth she can muster into the statement, "are the best dancers at this party."

He makes her wait while he thinks about it, and she bobs her head more emphatically, and somewhere behind her Catie makes a noise of despair.

"Hey," he says, "I'll buy that," and he gives her his slow burn of a grin, the one that always makes her weak at the knees; but this time he's there to catch her when she falters, pulling her close into his arms as she wraps hers around him, circles upon circles. She leans against his chest and closes her eyes as he holds her and sways back and forth. He's a little off-rhythm, and it'll drive her crazy in a minute, but for now it's perfect, his hands strong and warm on her back, the rhythm of his heartbeat under her ear the only song she wants for the rest of her life.

Well. Third time's the charm.

For now it's perfect, and true, and they go on swaying and the Earth keeps turning and planets swing around suns and the galaxy spins circles around them all, keeping time for the stars and the little piece of heaven they've found to call their own.

 _the end._


End file.
